Once Tempted (24 page)

“What you really want to know is if Chambley is the first man I’ve ever shot or was he the second.” She stood before him, so strong and sure, virtuous in her stance. She made him feel almost ashamed of himself for doubting her.

“I never said—”

“Oh, stow it, Robert. You don’t have to. You’ve been trying to ask me since we first met.” She turned and faced him. “You want to know if I killed that poor boy. You want to know if I had a hand in his murder. What do your instincts tell you? Better yet, what does your heart tell you?”

His gut? His heart? His gut told him she was capable of anything.

But murder
?

That question he didn’t want to answer.

“I don’t know,” he finally managed to say.

“You don’t know? After all this time, that’s what your gut tells you? How can that be?” There was an urgency to her question that went beyond the obvious—as if she needed his honesty as much as he needed hers.

How in that moment he wanted to tell her the truth, to open himself up to her so there would be no secrets between them—nothing between them but their damned need for each other—but he couldn’t do it. Not just yet. Not when there was so much at stake.

“Because my first allegiance is to Wellington. You’ve forced my hand, so that I have to take you to him, but I’d be a fool to put you before him and not trust you. Especially given your repu—”

“What? My reputation as a murderess? Next you’ll be accusing me of being a French spy.”

When she said it that way, it made him feel ridiculous.

“I’ve never killed anyone, Robert. Contrary to what the newspapers said, contrary to what Chambley said, I never killed that man.”

Her emphatic statement hit him at the heart of his doubts. Why couldn’t he just believe—like Colin seemed to be able to, like Jemmy did when he looked at her with his youthful and approving gaze?

Years of spying had left him full of cynicism, unable to believe with his heart as he had no doubts she did. And she looked at him now, expectantly, as if she wanted him to scale the wall he’d put up between them—for there on the other side she was waiting, hopefully, willingly . . .

Just then a freshening breeze rustled at her hair, teasing more of it out of place, the long tendrils curling down to her shoulders and floating up as if coaxed to dance by the wind. They tantalized him with their undulating movements, beckoning him to free the rest of her tendrils from their matronly prison.

She brushed at the loose strands and tried to poke them back into place, but he stopped her, taking her hand and holding it in his.

“Leave them be. I like your hair as it is.” He didn’t let go of her hand. Unfortunately for him, his need for answers was only surpassed by his need to know
her.

In an entirely different sense.

“When have you ever seen my hair loose?” she asked, tugging at her hand, but only half-heartedly.

Robert knew that if she wanted her hand back, Olivia was not the type to take no for an answer. “When I was sick. I may not have seemed lucid all the time, but I do remember you leaning over me, wiping my brow, talking to me.” He paused for a moment, recalling when he’d awakened and found her asleep atop him, her hair spilling over him like a silken sheet. He also recalled one other memory. “Oh, yes, there was the time when your hair was loose and you kissed me.”

“I never,” she said, but her color told another story.

One thing about Olivia Sutton he had learned was that she was a terrible liar. Try as she might, when she told a falsehood, she blushed.

And right now, even in the dark, he could see she was turning a rosy shade of untruth.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Why would I want to kiss you? I’ve already had the pleasure and it was rather unremarkable.”

Her color rose again. Another lie. Robert pressed his advantage by tugging her closer and wrapping his arms around her. “Are you sure you didn’t press your lips against mine just once, just because you feared you might not ever have another chance?”

“Oh, you arrogant beast. That wasn’t it at all. I kissed you because I—”

He grinned down at her. “So now we have the truth. You admit you did kiss me. You don’t need to tell me why. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Why you . . .  I should have left you to die!”

“That would have been foolish,” he told her. “Because then you wouldn’t have been able to do this.” And with that, his mouth covered hers, where first a muffled cry of protest sputtered forth, but he pressed his advantage, teasing her lips with his tongue to open for him, and then swept inside like a conquering hero.

She melted into his embrace.

And responded with the same wrenching passion that had nearly been his undoing so many weeks ago in London. Her answering touch held all the boldness he had long suspected she possessed. Her tongue met his, taunting him into her lair and then stroking him with her fevered kiss.

Her hands pulled him closer and her body melded with his, the thin fabric of her dress seeming to melt away as breasts pressed into his chest. Her hips swayed against the swollen, taut hardness that had blazed to life from the moment he’d started this tempestuous kiss.

His hand went to her breast, where he found the nipple hard and poised, as if waiting for his touch. As he started to roll his thumb over the nub, she sighed with a longing and need that matched his own.

Olivia’s senses reeled, her body coming alive under his skilled touch.

His mouth still bound hers in a kiss, one that she didn’t want to break. His tongue teased her, stroked her, called to her to trust him, to open herself to him.

To let go with all the wanton abandon that he awakened in her body.

Yet some part of her still clung to a fragile bit of sanity. To the notion that Robert Danvers’s involvement with her was more than just a treasure hunt and that he wanted something more from her than just her body. Something that could destroy any chance of honesty, of true feelings between them.

And if she went to him now, like this, she wondered if she would ever learn the truth. And so if she was to find out if Robert Danvers was the hero of her heart or another villain come to steal her secrets, she did the last thing she wanted to do.

She broke away from him with every ounce of strength she possessed.

“I can’t do this,” she said, her words coming out in passionate, ragged gasps. “I won’t do this.” With that, she ran from the deck and was down the ladder before he could stop her.

Olivia sought the refuge of her cabin but found that the devilment from above deck only hounded her below. She’d kissed him. She’d not only kissed him, she’d let him touch her like some type of wanton.

She wasn’t like that. But her body told a different story. She’d wanted Robert with a passion and fire that kindled her blood until it raged unquenchable and demanding.

She struggled to get out of Georgie’s dress, tugging the confounded thing over her head and tossing it into a heap in the corner. She should never have worn the thing, should never have gone up to the deck, never have hoped and prayed that Robert would follow her and never have wished on one of those countless stars that he would kiss her again.

But he had.

Her hand went to her still swollen lips. They tingled with the remembrance of his touch. That wasn’t all that tingled, but she chose to ignore those feelings.

She had to.

She didn’t know Robert Danvers any better than she had known Bradstone when she’d fallen prey to his lies and deceptions. And while Jemmy thought the man a hero, she was still unconvinced.

Tossing herself down on the wide berth that took up most of the room, Olivia discovered that sleep was as devilish as Robert’s kiss. At first it eluded her, and when it came, it was as unwanted and unnerving, carrying her into the nightmare she’d fought and lost for seven years.

At first she resigned herself to its reliable and unchangeable course, but this time the dream had changed. She knew that in an instant and fought to free herself from its dark grasp.

She tried to scream, tried to find help, but she knew she was all alone.

So instead, Olivia Sutton poised herself to fight the battle for her soul once again.

The first scream sent Robert straight out of his bunk. The second one had him out of his cabin, jumping into his breeches with the practiced ease of a man who’d fled the French with less time to dress.

He raced through Colin’s cabin, noting that his brother was nowhere to be seen, and went straight to Olivia’s room. He hesitated for a blink of an eye and then threw the door open, not sure what he was about to find.

Moonlight streamed through the portal, lighting the wide berth that took up the length of the narrow room. There Olivia writhed and twisted on the bed, the sheet and blanket tangled in knots around her. Her chemise rode high, her legs bare well up to her thighs. She kicked and flailed at her phantom assailants.

He reached for her without thinking, trying to catch her up and rescue her from her demons.

“Olivia, wake up. It’s a dream.” An unholy one, he thought, as he watched her lashes flutter open, a raw fear blazing in her eyes, revealing a hint of the horrors she fought in her sleep.

She struggled against him and with such fury that he let her go. The moment he released her, she turned her anger on the sheets and blankets trapping her, pulling and tearing at them until they too released her from their grasp.

For a moment she paused, her breath coming in wild, ragged pants, like a fox at the end of the hunt.

Her gaze then took in her surroundings in wild, quick glances, as if she were looking for any more hidden assailants in the pale shimmer of moonlight. She blinked several more times until her gaze found and focused on him.

Her eyes widened with horror, and she scrambled away from him as if he were the object of her fears.

Then it hit him. She thought he was Bradstone.

“Olivia, it’s me, Robert,” he whispered, trying to soothe the fear still riding high in her eyes. “You’re safe, there is no one here who will harm you.”

He crossed the room, climbing into the bunk beside her and pulling her into his arms. Olivia fought him for a moment, but then, as if all her strength faded away, she gave in to his embrace.

She nestled further into his arms, something about her simple, trusting movements touching a part of his heart rarely reached. And as she tipped her head to his, he could think of nothing but blotting out the past with just one kiss.

Just one simple kiss.

He should have known from experience that a kiss between them would never be simple.

Surely it started that way, with their lips caressing, but then she opened up to him, her tongue flicking over his teeth, offering an invitation that pushed aside his reluctance, his misgivings, his distrust of this woman.

It was all overruled as his body clamored with reawakened need.

His mouth welcomed her lips, their soft, inviting touch caressing him, stroking him, inflaming him. Her hands curled around his neck and pulled him closer, her breasts pressing against his chest.

Unable to resist, his hand cupped one of them, pushing aside the fabric there, so he could feel her, touch the satin of her skin, the pebbled flesh of her nipple as it hardened under the feathery touch of his fingers.

She sighed, an earthy cry of need, and arched her back. “Do that again,” she whispered.

And so he did. And she made the same contented little sound that only served to encourage him to explore her passionate needs all the more.

His mouth moved over her neck, down the slope of her shoulder. Her hair brushed against his cheek; the rich scent of the sea and wind whispered from those errant, fiery strands. Beneath his lips, her pulse fluttered and beat, while her mouth sighed and whispered encouragement in his ear. His lips trailed over her breast, the one he’d teased to a hardened peak. Once there he took it into his mouth and suckled, his teeth grazing over her, his tongue stroking her as his fingers had done before.

When he looked up, her mouth had fallen open in a moue of pleasure and surprise, while her eyes, alight with smoky passion, revealed the depths of pleasure she was finding under his ministrations.

His own body had grown hard at their first kiss, but now his member strained against his breeches, throbbing and demanding. He wanted more from her, wanted to see all of her, and so he tugged and pulled and tore at her chemise until it was discarded and lost from view.

Olivia lay back in the bunk, her body thrumming with a life she’d never felt before. She felt so wanton, so free, so alive, that she cared not that she didn’t truly trust this man.

And yet she did.

How many times had she wished for someone to come and vanquish her nightmares, consign her enemies to a place where they would never hurt her again? And he had. All with his kiss. Something inside her trusted his touch, knew that his heart belonged to her and her alone. And so she couldn’t refuse him, not when her body sang and beat in a wild tattoo under his passionate guidance.

When his lips had found her breast, a new world had begun to uncoil. For while the
ton
thought her a ruined woman, the truth be told, she had never made love before. Despite her passionate letters that all London had read, she’d never given in to more than Bradstone’s practiced kiss. Even when they’d been alone in his bedchamber, she had shied away from taking that one last step into complete ruination. A wary voice had urged her to wait until she was truly wed, and now she understood that it had been some deep, instinctive part of her that had known not to trust Bradstone with such a gift. For now as something raw and untamed uncoiled deep inside her, promising hints of the burning fires to come, she was beginning to see, to realize why someone could give up so much for something so fleeting.

Robert had turned his attentions to her other breast, and it too was hard and tingling. But even more disconcerting was the hot, demanding need coming from the juncture of her thighs, in a place so private she dared not consider what pleasure could be found there.